Abiding with a Eunuch
This sermon can be heard here
Gate Pa –
Easter 5, 2021
Readings:
Psalm
Psalm
22:25-31
First
Reading: Acts
8:26-40
Second
Reading: 1
John 4:7-21
Gospel: John
15:1-8
What I want to
say:
Explore
how we love – ourselves and others
Abiding
as preparing a place in our heart where we are deeply at home
Use
the story of the Eunuch to explore what it looks life when we abide in God and
God abides in us.
What I want to
happen:
What do Jesus’ words “Remain in me”
mean for you?
How do we seek to “remain in God?”
What
difference does it make?
The Sermon
1. Introduction:
Today we celebrate mothers
-
our love for mothers
-
mothers love of her children
But Love is an interesting word
Used so many ways
For example -
Expert on this and harsh critique of what is
offered in name of Margaretta pizza.
She loves the flavours, textures and
combinations.
She does not love
it when people play around with this.
ð
What or who do you love? – talk
When I use the word in this way I am talking
about how Margaretta pizza makes her feel.
She feels love when she eats that pizza.
All about her and how she feels
Too often that is what is meant when people
talk about loving another person.
Hollywood movies are full of stories with
marriage vows which are simply expressions of “when I am with you I feel a
whole combination of emotions that make me feel great, and I want this to last
forever.”
It is all about them
And when those feelings don’t last forever
they fall out of love and separate.
Sadly sometimes mother’s are more in love with
idea of being mother and how they feel as mother
-
It becomes about them rather than
child.
-
One reasons mother’s day can be
difficult
2. Love part 2
My daughter loves making Margaretta pizzas
Yes it makes her feel good
And she enjoys eating it
But she also makes pizza with care and love
Making the dough
Creating the source
Putting it all together
If the pizzas were sentient, it would know it
was loved.
This is the kind of love Paul talks about in
his letters
Love for the other
Commitment to the other
So that when the complex layers of emotions
change
The commitment to the other carries on
The mothers we celebrate are those who live
love like this
Wrapping their children in love
ð What
kind of love were you talking about?
3. John’s gospel and love
One of big themes in John’s gospel is love
There in background in today’s reading
Front and centre next week when we carry on
with chapter 15
There at beginning - “God so loved the world”
(3:16)
ð What
kind of love is John talking about here?
While creation world give God great joy
Love talked about here is God’s ongoing work so
that creation and all who live in it might flourish
We are invited to be part of this loving work
In light of that lets look at today reading
from John and Acts
4. Kiwifruit
One my joys over last nine years having Trevor
join me for services at Fraser Manor
Sadly not able to any more
Always talked about kiwi fruit vines
Hard times when had cut them all out because of
PSA
Care grafting new vines onto old stumps
Care and love in making sure right amount dry
matter on ground
-
Right number leaves per fruit
-
Pruning to ensure maximum harvest
His joy and love in working with those vines
Careful and loving way he cared for those
vines
Pruned those branches with PSA
Those that were too close
Those that would not produce fruit
Need to be taken away /burnt in case they put
down roots and start to grow separate from main vine
That helps me into today’s image of vine and branches
Great image for us
Lovingly grafted into the story of God’s
ongoing love for, commitment to, this world and all who live in it.
Do we choose to be part of this?
5. Abide or Remain
Passage just listened to is part of Jesus
farewell talk to disciples
Everything is about to change
Words of comfort not judgment
Remember that as you read them
Says – “Remain in me, and I
will remain in you”
Says to us “Remain in me, and I
will remain in you “
what does it mean to remain in
-
Room has been made in heart of God
where we might be deeply at home
-
Make room in our heart – individuals and
as community,
o
where God is deeply at home
Image of vine – divine life wells up from
beneath and within
(cf empowering Spirit of Luke and Paul)
Rooted in life giving relationship
Become people of love
Not for ourselves
But for all creation
That is not always easy process
Involves being pruned
-
attitudes
-
assumptions
-
prejudices
6. Philip and Eunuch
As we can see from story of Phillip and Ethiopian
eunuch
What do we know about Philip?
-
Gentile
-
Deacon with Stephen
-
Saw world through Greco-Roman world
view
-
Saw all non white (Ethiopian) as less
than and other
o
inferior
all likelihood Ethiopian eunuch
also Jew
-
descendant of those fled south at time
Babylonian invasion and taking Jerusalem ( still Jewish communities there
today)
eunuch
Most castrated before adolescence
o
Looked different
o
Seen as not men
o
Different
o
Not really belonging
o
Inferior
o
Jewish world in Leviticus and
Deuteronomy –
§
may not take part in temple worship
Spirit drives him out to place where
encounters Ethiopian
every count he was an outsider
Philip has his assumptions and prejudices
pruned
Confronts own reluctance in preaching gospel
to ALL people
Eunuch does the rest
Takes his chance
Asks to be grafted into the people of God as Philip
explains it
Has his own own assumptions of being a outsider
pruned
Embraces idea that God loves him
-
takes delight in him
-
And actively loving him and including
him
7. Conclusion
I wonder what do these stories say to us
How might we respond?
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